Spiritual Disposition

The acuteness of their senses is considerable; and this holds good not merely of their cleverness in finding lost objects, or seeing small birds in covert. An inventive intelligence is native to them. The Polynesian has not the childish naïveté of the negro; but at the same time he is not so reserved as the Malay nor so calculating as the Chinese.

A race of contradictions

If in surrender to the impulses of their nature these are genuine "natural" races, on the other hand the barriers of tradition are rigid and social ordinances manifold; and although they attack Nature and each other with primitive implements and weapons, they have in other directions given proof of no narrow intellectual endowment. If all "natural" races display something contradictory in the proportion which their cultivation bears to their endowment, the Polynesians are in truth a race of contradictions.

Women of the Gilbert Islands and Marshall Islands.
(From a photograph in the Godeffroy Album)
[Click on picture for higher resolution]

To Cook and his companions the Tahitians and Society Islanders appeared as gentle and agreeable people, in many respects to be envied, fortunate, like children of an extremely happy disposition. Yet a century ago the Tongans were still cannibals. And if we turn over the record of the dealings of the Tahitians with white men, we shall find mention of their meeting with Wallis's expedition; which they met in quite a different manner, and experienced a bloody repulse. By that time the white men had made themselves feared. In cases where they had not received any lesson of this kind, the natives appeared as regular savages. Cook was himself partly to blame, by his over-confidence, for his murder on Hawaii.

Lies and Dissimulation

Dressed skull, from the Marshall Islands.
(Godeffroy Collection).

A whole series of treacherous attacks are known to have occurred in the small exterior islands, such as the Paumotu, Savage, and Penrhyn groups; and the history of New Zealand records still more. Without being savages after the fashion of the Bushmen or Australians, the Polynesians are of an untrustworthy changeable character. The Micronesians for the most part maintain a timid attitude; but they are frequently few in number confined to a solitary island, and almost defenceless against strangers.

Under great outward vivacity lies the dullness of the uncultured nature. Even among Christian Polynesians one is struck by the indifference with which they meet a disgraceful death at the hand of the executioner; and the tranquility of children at the death of their parents, particularly in blood-steeped New Zealand, has been remarked. Human sacrifices and cannibalism must have left their traces in the disposition. These evil qualities are cloaked by a childish levity. The task of the criminal law is materially lightened by their garrulity; they cannot keep a secret, even to save themselves from the scaffold.

Comedy of King Finn

Throughout Polynesia one hears plenty of quarrelsome talk and sees very little fighting. Even in serious warfare words play an important part. Many words are accompanied by many falsehoods. An entertaining proof of the art of the Polynesians in fiction is afforded by the appearance of the sham king Finn on Cook's second visit to the Friendly Islands in 1777. In order to carry through the part, many others had to take as much share in the farce as he himself; and yet Cook was taken in for some days, and only began to suspect when he saw the impostor do obeisance to the real king.